The ready availability of camera technology, particularly in small, lightweight computing devices, has increased the prevalence of amateur photography. Owners of smartphones and tablet devices often desire to take informal or candid shots, often with little or no time to prepare camera settings or the environment of the shot. Camera users also often choose to publish the picture in a very short amount of time, such as by “sharing” the picture to an online social media environment. In addition, camera users frequently wish to take pictures in low-light or indoor venues that require additional light from the camera flash. In these situations, reflective surfaces—including mirrors, eyeglasses, windows, or even polished objects—cause the flash to reflect back to the camera during the photo exposure. This results in unattractive glare appearing in the digital photograph. In addition to being unattractive or distracting, flash glare during a photographic exposure obscures the intended content of the photo, preventing the photographer from capturing the desired moment.
Some efforts to eliminate glare from photographs include taking a picture without using a flash. However, this results in images with content that is poorly illuminated, blurry, or otherwise of poor quality. Current efforts at glare removal include post-processing by software, such as flash-removal techniques performed on a digital image after the digital image is captured. However, this process is time-consuming, and prevents the photographer from quickly sharing the picture. Also, post-processing techniques require expertise that an amateur photographer may not have. In addition, because the content information behind the reflection cannot be artificially recreated by software, the results appear incomplete or unsatisfactory.
Thus, existing solutions involve disadvantages such as (but not limited to) inability to remove glare from a photograph at the time of capture while preserving the quality of image content or otherwise capturing image content that is obscured by reflections.